Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Read online

  ASCEND ONLINE: Glory to the Brave

  Copyright © 2020 by Luke Chmilenko. All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or fictitious recreations of

  actual historical persons. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and

  unintended by the authors unless otherwise specified.

  Editor: Dominion Editing

  Proofer: Evan Mears

  Cover Illustration: Yongjae Choi

  Cover Design and Interior Layout: STK•Kreations

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-7770169-0-6

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-7770169-1-3

  Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9953378-9-3

  Worldwide Rights.

  1st Edition, September 2020

  Published by Aetherworld Productions Inc.

  www.lukechmilenko.com

  Table of Contents

  The Story So Far

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Epilogue

  Lyrian’s Character Sheet at the End of Glory to the Brave

  Amaranth’s Character Sheet at the end of Glory to the Brave

  Help me reach my goal!

  Afterword

  Other Series by Luke Chmilenko

  Thank You, Patrons!

  Stormweaver: Iron Prince

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  To my grandparents:

  Thank you.

  To Anastasia:

  Welcome to the world.

  The Story So Far

  Welcome back viewers! This is Vincent the Faceroller coming to you all hot here with a recap of the last two seasons of our Virtus crew out in Aldford that have taken the world by storm! For those of you like myself who’ve had the episodes on repeat while waiting for this new season, you are more than welcome to skip ahead here, unless of course you happen to love listening to my voice as much as I do. Then you are more than welcome to listen on as I break down all the things you need to know in this rough and irreverent overview!

  Are you ready? Alright, here we go!

  So starting off with Season One, we have our main hero, Lyrian, who jumped into the world of Ascend Online with his friends on launch day, but for reasons unknown, ended up being split from them and dumped into the frontier town of Aldford. Landing in the settlement with not even so much as a loincloth to protect his dignity, Lyrian found himself attacked by a horde of nasty goblins who were in the process of invading the town. So from there, like any good adventurer does, he goes full goblin slayer on their tiny asses and clears out the place with the help of a few other villagers that he manages to rally in the process. During this process, he’s introduced to the major movers and shakers of the town, meeting Aldwin – the Bann of the settlement, Jenkins – the town’s resident handyman, Ritt – Aldford’s sole merchant, and lastly Shelia – a priestess of the Dawnfather and the town’s healer.

  But of course, with the tiny gremlins being the colossal pains in the butts that they are, they managed to wreck almost everything in the town as well as spoil what food had been stockpiled, leaving everyone to pick up the pieces as best they can. In Lyrian’s case, this has him going out into the countryside to hunt and find what resources he can, the next few days passing in a blur of activity. During that stretch, Lyrian manages to earn himself a Nemesis in the form of a particularly angry Puma, stumble into a long since abandoned Nafarrian ruin, finding a neat sword in the process, and rescuing an elf named Natasha, who had been part of a Mages Guild Expedition in the area from Eberia. Fortunately, it isn’t too long until Lyrian’s friends arrive, lending several more hands to the town’s rebuilding efforts. At least until things kick themselves up a notch and a horde of spiders start pouring out of the nearby forest.

  Ætherwarped spiders that happen to explode when you kill them. You guys remember that, right? I still have nightmares.

  Scrambling to deal with the new threat, the group is forced to defend Aldford from an all-out spider invasion, barely managing to cut them down before they can destroy the place. This of course leaves another gigantic mess for everyone to clean up, some of it involving a large stain of brightly glowing spider ichor that had been infused with raw magic. Unsure of what exactly to do to best take care of it, the group decides to push it all together in a pile and on a whim, toss a handful of acorns onto it, in hopes that if maybe something ends up growing from the mess, they won’t have to worry about the magically contaminated ground.

  And of course as I’m sure we can all remember, that’s exactly what happens, the acorns sprouting into the beginnings of a tall, azure-hued oak tree overnight.

  From there, the people of Aldford do the best they can to recover from the attack, turning their attention to the Webwood, where the attack had come from. Deciding that they need to get to the bottom of the magically warped spiders before another, possibly even larger attack hits the town, the group then sets off in search of wherever it is that they’re coming from, blazing a path deep into the forest. As they do, they manage to luckily find the remains of the Eberian Mages Guild Expedition camp that had been attacked by some of the very same goblins that raided Aldford a few days earlier. But of course as these things go, they barely have the time to poke through the place before they find themselves attacked by not only another set of freakily magically altered spiders, but also Lyrian’s furry Nemesis.

  Battling things out in a glorious three-way showdown, the group manages to fortunately gain the upper hand in this mess, killing the spiders and sending the Nemesis running for the hills in the process. Not wanting to let the thing continue to stalk them, Lyrian and the others give chase to the puma, eventually tracking it to yet another abandoned Nafarrian ruin, which conveniently is the source of the spider infestation. Exploring the place, it i
sn’t long before they find themselves caught up in a sprawling battle against not only the ruin’s security system and the Nemesis, but a swarm of spiders and a goblin mage while simultaneously finding another member of the missing Mages Guild Expedition named Donovan. Forming a quick alliance as they decide to hunt their respective enemies, the group, plus Donovan, go to confront the goblin and the Spider Queen in the deepest parts of the ruin, her twisted form straddling a rent open section of the Ley Line. A Ley Line that both Lyrian and his Nemesis end up taking a swan dive into in the final moments of their fight, resulting in a touch of Ætherwarping for the pair and birth of our lovable, blue-furred familiar, Amaranth. Winding down from the showdown with the Spider Queen, the group heads back to Aldford and celebrates their victory with peace finally falling over the forest, giving them all a chance to breathe.

  If at least for a short while.

  Knowing it was a matter of time until more players start arriving to the region or another monster attack happens, the group then focuses their efforts on rebuilding and fortifying Aldford giving it the defenses that it didn’t have during the first goblin attack. An effort that is rewarded when, like clockwork, they find a large swarm of Adventurers headed to the town, very clearly bearing ill will to whatever crossed their path. It’s at this point where we have our big guy Graves entering in from stage left, the man and his flunkies having expected to reach Aldford with his friends already in charge.

  Friends that may or may not have been accidently knocked off by the rest of the group on their way to join Lyrian in Aldford.

  In any case, Graves doesn’t take the group’s resistance in allowing him to take over the town lightly and moves to attack, immediately finding himself on the receiving end of a vicious beatdown from Lyrian. Enough so, that by the time the birds stopped spinning around his head, his entourage had managed to throw themselves headfirst into the shiny new defenses that the gang has prepared. And I mean that literally. If you check the top ten deaths from season one, you’ll see that four of them are from this battle alone with attackers getting thrown face first into the Tribuli pits the group dug around the town. Anyway, getting back to the fun, with Graves’s people running off half-cocked to the battle it allows a large group of imprisoned Adventurers they’d captured to break free, sending everything into chaos. Overwhelmed at this point, Graves and his followers realize that they need to beat feet and run away or they’ll be getting an all-expenses paid ticket back to Eberia and manage to run off into the forest.

  Regrouping after the battle, Lyrian and the others have to a chance to meet Freya and the others (See what I did there?) the group of newcomers joining the town, happy to be free from the clutches of Graves, Carver, and all the others that had captured them. At this point, we all break for an interrogation of the Adventurer that had been captured from Graves’s attack along with a training montage of the group getting ready to chase after Graves. Which is exactly what they end up doing after they learn that some of their people had been captured by Carver and the very same goblins that had plagued the group from the beginning. Pushing ahead from there, our newly expanded gang, now accompanied by Freya, Thorne, and the Thunder Lizards explore in the direction that Graves and others had fled, eventually finding the ruined remains of an ancient tower being reclaimed by the forest.

  Oh, and goblins too, lots and lots of goblins.

  Charging in collectively, it’s then time for the whole group to channel their inner goblin slayer once again, carving through a swath of the annoying creatures forcing their way into the tower where the creatures have made their home. Now as we all know, fire is the natural enemy of goblins, and the group makes plenty of use of it as they push deeper into the ruin, burning their nest to ash. This arsonous path eventually leads them through the goblins and into the abandoned parts of the tower, where they find evidence of ancient artificing beyond their understanding. Unfortunately they don’t have any time to pursue that, as Carver picks that moment to rear his ugly head with the Adventurers that he’d kidnapped, killing them right in front of the group in brutal fashion. Stunned a little by his viciousness, the group moves to confront the man and promptly find themselves being attacked by the Ætherwarped survivors of the Eberian Mages Guild, their bodies wickedly twisted by magic, allowing Carver and his followers a chance to escape in the chaos.

  Regrouping from the mess, the group has little other option but to press forward, eventually finding themselves entering a tunnel that the goblins had forced the expedition survivors to dig. Leading into a magical chamber that was once buried at the base of the tower when it still stood, the group arrives just in time to see Graves and the remainder of the goblins in the middle of doing something to a font of magical power that was being siphoned off of the Ley Line below. The result of this ends up with the spirit of an ancient Nafarrian Slave-King that was possessing Graves’s armor being given a physical form, or an ethereal one at least. Now I’m sure by this point you’re all starting to remember what happened next as we have the big season ending climax here, with Lyrian and Graves squaring off with one another as the others battle back and forth with the Slave-King and the goblins. Better geared and better motivated, Lyrian manages to lay Graves out a second time during this mess and snatches up an artifact that had been in the room, an Annulment Sphere, and charges the Slave-King with it, jumping straight into him in an ultimate clutch move to seal the win for the gang.

  Unfortunately that comes at the price of Lyrian’s Ætherwarping going completely off the charts and leaving him a bit of a withered husk. But despite that physical change, the magic of the sphere grants our Spellsword hero the ability to drain mana from anything he touches, which if you ask me is a pretty badass thing to have. Winding down from there, the group then sends Graves on his merry way back to respawn land and rescues the last few expedition members that didn’t end up biting it, taking them all back to Aldford for a round of much needed rest. It’s during this rest that Lyrian, Freya, and all those we’ve come to know and love come together to form Virtus, bringing us to the end of season one.

  What? Did you think that was the whole thing? That was just the warm-up. Season two is where the action really lights up, so buckle up!

  Starting off with an epic battle, Lyrian and Virtus start it off with a bang, attacking a horde of bandit Adventurers that were in the middle of raiding a group of settlers that were overdue to arrive at Aldford. But thanks to their timely arrival, they are able to rescue them without losing too many settlers in the chaos and safely escort them back to Aldford where they are all welcomed to the town with open arms. As they do, they find themselves meeting a whole new host of arrivals, the largest amongst them being Justicar Joseph Dyre and Lord Adrian Stanton, along with our other group of standout Adventurers, Lazarus, Sawyer, and Ransom (Check out their feed titled ‘Hell to Pay’ if you want to learn more about them! It’s a wicked urban fantasy adventure filled with fire and brimstone!).

  But as they settle into the city, they quickly find themselves with a host of exciting news as well as a handful of growing pains. Starting with the news first, delivered by Stanton, he warns the group both of the political turmoil that’s growing back in Eberia and also that of a building magical signature that is growing near Aldford. One that’s built high enough that they’ve been able to sense all the way back from the city, miles upon miles away. Instantly having an idea of what the noble might be talking about, Lyrian and the others are interrupted in their explanation by the abrupt death of an Adventurer in the town, one that was killed by Mozter, our resident copycat Spellsword. Taking more than a little offense to the death, we at that point have an epic five on three duel with Mozter’s entire group against Lyrian, Freya, and Amaranth, to which ends up with all five of the offending Adventurers heading for a fast respawn.

  Followed by a quick exile away from the town once Dyre got involved.

  It’s at that point where we get a warning from Lazarus that Stanton isn’t quite what he seems to b
e. Unsure about the exact nature of the warning, or how much to even believe the man and his group, there is little else that he can do until he learns more, choosing to instead keep an eye on the noble. Fast forwarding through all of that for the next few days, Lyrian and Virtus then play babysitter with Stanton as they lead him through all of the nearby Nafarrian ruins so that they can best figure out exactly what’s going on with the Ley Line that they believe is leaking raw magic underneath Aldford. In one of the ruins in particular, the lakeside one near Crater Lake, they find hints that it may go deeper underground and make plans to see if they can’t excavate a passage to reach it. Unfortunately, it’s during this time that Stanton proves to be a huge pain in the butt and tries to dominate Lyrian and the others through sheer force of will, causing them to bite back at him and effectively cut him out of the investigation.

  This in turn, sets off a particularly confusing chain of events which has Stanton revealing that he isn’t ‘Stanton’ as we know it, but rather an agent, or a spy rather, sent by none other than the Dowager Queen Emilia Denarius. Receiving a crash course in Eberian politics during the revelation, it’s at that point that Stanton reveals his true purpose in coming to the frontier, which is to help fix the Ley Line, something that’s needed for Eberia’s defense, and to help the queen wash her hands of Aldford. Or specifically, Aldwin. Apparently the elder knight had been caught up in the middle of a scandal surrounding the previous prince’s, Prince Rainier’s, death at the end of The War, resulting in his effective exile because of it. That scandal has led to the other noble houses of Eberia focusing their attention on both him and Aldford, sending their own spies into it, or at least trying to. Unfortunately with so many of the promised settlers killed by the bandit Adventurers, neither the group nor Stanton have any idea who, or if anyone at all, might be working on behalf of the other noble groups. Leaving that information in the back of their minds for the time being, the group parts angrily with Stanton, both his deception weighing heavily on them as well as the discovery that they’ve been pulled into politics they don’t understand.